﻿<title>Keeping Balance</title>

<h1>Keeping Balance</h1>

<div id="1">Kayaks are made quite narrow so that you don’t need much strength to make it move. This means that you need to actively keep the balance, but fortunately it is easy and usually comes naturally.</div>

<div id="2">To stay in balance, you need to always <b>keep your upper body relaxed and perpendicular to the water</b>. Relax your stomach and lower back and let the kayak tilt freely when the waves push it. Keeping your eyes on the horizon will also help to keep the balance. <b>Don't hold on the kayak.</b> It will most likely tip you over rather than give you any extra support.</div>

<div id="3">But if you loose balance and need to get support from somewhere, just <b>quickly slap the surface of water with the back face of your paddle blade</b>. This will give a fairly good support but only for a second, so you need to <b>recover your balance immediately</b>.<br /><br />This and some other methods to get support from the water surface are described in detail later on the <a="sub4.topic1">Braces and Eskimo Roll</a> section.</div>